A considerable time later, Sebastian looked up calmly. The rest of the gathered group turned their heads to him expectantly.

"What is it?" Ciel asked, blue eye glinting in concern.

"May I suggest we relocate to the main driveway?" he said. "It's a larger expanse, much flatter than the grass and it will be more open, with less space for the opponents to conceal themselves."

"Do you think they are near?" Ciel said, as the group began to follow the two of them around to the front driveway of the mansion.

"I'm quite certain." Sebastian replied. "If they had set off the moment the vial was broken, travelling on horseback from their headquarters, at the average speed, they should be arriving promptly."

"You cannot possibly have worked that out." Gideon said, voice tinged with disbelief bordering on impatience.

"Perhaps." Sebastian shrugged elegantly. "Or perhaps I just overheard our adversaries draw up."

Sure enough, as all heads turned, vampires swarmed the iron-gated entrance to the estate. As they approached, wrenching their way in easily with vampire strength, - some dismounting or already off their horses, others still in the saddles – Ciel stepped sharply up onto the front steps, trying to gain some height on the attackers. And as the fanged enemies approached, as supernatural a being as his own butler, Ciel wondered for the first time whether, this time, Sebastian may fail to protect him. Whether his parents must go unavenged.

Weapons drawn, the seven approached. As Camille stepped to the fore of her group, her eyes flashed bitterly green. Her eyes travelled to Magnus, where her gaze held.

"Working with the Nephilim now?" she asked, disgust obvious in her voice.

He didn't reply, just continued staring at her. Magnus was not a man of few words, but his voice seemed to have left him. Camille shook her head, looking at him as if he was something disgusting. He remembered the look of flirtation, their dalliance. He could never have imagined, back then, ever seeing such contempt in those bright green eyes.

"Filthy traitor." She spat, and he looked away, the pain of it making him wince. He said nothing. The sound of his heart groaning with the agony of her words drowned out anything else in his mind.

"Lady Belcourt," Jem said, voice raised to address the group in its entirety. "We are giving you the opportunity to stop this. Your fellows need not die for you. Just stop dealing in the mundane opium trade, especially as you are enslaving mundanes."

"It is business." Camille retorted haughtily.

"It is wrong!" Jem cried, blood boiling at the injustice. "It is depraved. It's against the Covenant Law!"

"They are mundanes!" Camille cried, voice going shrill on the last syllable, incredulity at the concern painting her voice.

"They're people!" Jem shot back, with uncharacteristic fire. Will glanced across at him, at his pale white cheeks flushed pink with anger. Will knew why. Jem had been forced to endure the consequences of the action. Now he was forced to stand and watch dozens of helpless mundanes, made to go through a hellish transformation to a vampiric state they knew nothing about. Jem understood, he could sympathise, and saw in Camille the demon Yanluo who he'd never been able to see and have his revenge on. If he couldn't avenge his own pain, he could at least try to put a stop to the mundanes' suffering. Will had never stopped to think what this mission might mean to Jem. He'd never said, he'd held all his anger inside. Will was usually so good at sensing when Jem was hurting. But he hadn't. Not this time.

"So, what do you say?" Will asked.

"If you want submission, you shall have to fight like the warriors you pretend to be!" Camille snapped.

And, her words like a match to gunpowder, the battle surged into being.

Gideon dragged Gabriel to his back, their spines pressed against one another. The steady movement of each other was the easiest way for them both to tell their partner was still alive and okay. As well as this, it meant they could find with a radius of 360⁰ without either of their backs being exposed to attack. For all the time in the last year they had spent apart or vexed with one another, they fell back into their rhythm as easily as anything. Perhaps, Gabriel thought, they should be parabatai. But that was a thought – and a discussion with Gideon – for another time. He flung out with a blade, darting the weapon toward a vampire. As the creature dropped sharply before him, he turned his gaze to the next attacker when a vice-like grip took hold of his leg, yanking him off balance.

"Gid!" he cried and a hand grabbed his arm from behind, righting him before he hit the floor. Gabriel slashed down, cutting the vampire's hand, still clung to his ankle, clean off. The creature shrieked in agony and doubled forward at Gabriel's feet. It was mere moments before the shadowhunter's blade was sheathed in gaudy red vampire blood.

"Thank you." Gabriel gasped out to his brother.

"Are you okay?" came the response over his shoulder.

"Perfectly." Gabriel replied, seeing the bright red pool at his feet. "Perfectly fine."

Ciel found quickly that a sword cane had its significant advantages. For one, it was long and he didn't have to get quite as close as with a knife. And, for another, the tip was so sharp that it went into skin like a knife through butter. He backed to the top of the main steps, compensating for his short stature somewhat. He glanced out over the scene, heart racing under his shirt.

"Young Lord," Sebastian shouted, without turning from his fight to look Ciel's way. "Behind you."

Ciel spun as a vampire dove from behind one of the pillows either side of the wide double doors. The creature was facing the doors, on the top step of the stairs Ciel had just ascended and the young Earl pondered whether there was some way to manoeuvre the situation so as to push the vampire down the stone steps. He went to draw up his cane, but the vampire – with enhanced supernatural speed – was in front of Ciel in an instant. He wrenched the cane from Ciel's hand, grabbed him by the neck and threw him roughly against the wooden door, pinning him there by the throat. Ciel could hardly gasp a breath; calling Sebastian was out of the question. His neck, he felt, was going slick under the vampire's hand and it took him a moment to realise the creature's claw – like nails were digging into his flesh hard enough to draw blood.

The vampire snarled hungrily and Ciel's hands scrabbled desperately at the claws encircling his throat. His feet barely touched the floor, toes brushing the ground, the creature held him so tight. Ciel's vision was fading at the edges, capturing the vampire's fanged snarl in a faded vignette. His hand fell to his side, clunking awkwardly on something at his hip. The gun. The vampire gun. Will had said for close range only, and as Ciel could smell the rotten meat stench of blood on his opponent's breath, he was fairly sure this qualified as close range. It required great accuracy, Will had said. Whilst lack of oxygen made his vision blurred and made his hands shake, he had little choice but to try. Slowly as he could bear to, Ciel eased the gun from the holster at his waist, raised it to the vampire's back and rested the barrel against his spine, opposite to their heart. His mind sliding with his vision, Ciel tried to recall Will's words: "The back one shoots the bullets. And the front one...this drives into the heart." With numb fingers, Ciel traced the triggers, found the front one and squeezed.

Blood splattered across Ciel's face and shirt as the vampire fell to the ground and Ciel's feet found earth. He gasped, feeling at his throat, hands coming away from his neck covered in red. His vision cleared at the edges and he slid his back down the door, coming to rest sat on the step beside his slaughtered foe. He wiped some of the vampire's blood from his face and heaved, his breathing still laboured, feeling the ache of blossoming bruises on his pale skin, red handprints on his windpipe a lasting mark of the vampire he sat beside, trying to coax his breathing and heart rate back to something like normal.

"My Lord?"

Ciel looked up to see his butler, coat tails torn and bloodied, gazing at him with something resembling concern.

"Why did you not come?" Ciel rasped.

"You never called."

Ciel almost laughed. Sebastian's hand took his and gently pulled Ciel to his feet.

"Is it your asthma, my Lord?" Sebastian enquired.

"No, I was just choked by a vampire." Ciel replied, his breathlessness subsiding to a wheezing note. "The blood is not mine."

"That may be," Sebastian sighed. "But it has made a mess of the stone."